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Memorial Day 5k recap

On Monday I ran in a local Memorial Day 5k. It’s what we call a ‘no frills event’ because it wasn’t put on by a certain group trying to raise money, it’s only $10 and there is no tshirt. If you brought canned goods for the Second Harvest food bank you got a discounted entry and a total of 113 pounds was collected!! It was put on by our local, I guess you could call him, running guru who owns the timing company that does all of our local races. The holiday races usually bring out a bigger crowd than our every weekend 5ks, and this year there were 92 participants. I saw lots of unfamiliar faces out there!
When I went to bed Sunday night, I still wasn’t sure if I was going to run the race. I told Colin I would wait to see how my cough was and make sure it didn’t get worse through the night. When my alarm went off Monday morning I felt great and I was getting excited to run. Colin had agreed to postpone his training until I got done which was awesome of him to do so that motivated me even more to get out there and get a good time. I drove to the race start and Colin let Brice sleep a little longer then they came down right before it started.

Based on the shadow of my phone there is no denying that this is a selfie, but hey Colin wasn’t there yet. 🙂 I did a slow one mile warm up with some strides in the middle to get my legs turning over faster. After a few very nice words from the race organizer regarding Memorial Day we walked a little ways up the street to the starting line. I went ahead and set myself up to run fast by lining up with the under 24 minute group.

I started out way too fast. I was trying to keep up with the lady that I barely beat at my 10k back in March. I checked my watch and I was running at a 7:15 pace which I knew was too fast. My goal/plan was to run a 7:55, 7:45, 7:30, then all out for the last .1. I felt good for the first mile but then at about 1.5 miles my lungs started burning and I felt a cough coming. I carries a small water bottle with me, something I never do, to keep my mouth and throat wet to hopefully keep any coughing away. Sadly it didn’t work. I pushed on and then at about 2.5 miles I really needed to cough so I had to walk. I can’t remember the last race that I walked in!! I had told myself that I would listen to my body though and I don’t think I could have physically kept going. So I walked, coughed, took a few sips of water and pushed on. At this point I was doing all the calculations of how fast I needed to run to make my goal of under 24 minutes. Just a couple of minutes later I needed to cough again so it was another walk break. At this point I new I was so close to breaking 24 minutes but my body just wasn’t having it! Once my lungs recovered I pushed on and ended up finishing in 24:08. My splits were 7:40, 8:00, 7:53, and 33 seconds for the last .12.

Colin was very happy for me and proud of my time. Knowing my boys were at the finish line definitely helped push me through!! Almost immediately after I finished, Colin left to go start his long bike ride and Brice and I hung out for he awards. I was a little bummed I didn’t break 24 minutes but I know 100% if I didn’t have that little bit of a cough I would have done it. I did end up winning my age group and was the 5th women overall so I’m happy with the results!! There were some speedy ladies out there on Monday! Even better is that this was a PR for me and a good motivator to get out and do my speed work!!